Suzie looked very sad, but didn't cry. I knew she would have cried when it happened.
"How old was she?", asked Tessa.
Suzie looked over at me curiously. "I don't know. How old was she?"
I had to think a bit. When I came back through in 1968, she was young, but not a new puppy. "I'm not absolutely sure, but I think we got her in '65 or '66. It was the summer, that I remember. That would make her 14 or 15. What's that in dog years? Over a hundred, at least!"
"She hung in there!", commented Tusker.
I smiled at him. "That she did! She was a good dog." Suzie and I told a few Daisy related tales. Finally I stuck my finger in front of Charlie, and he latched onto it. "Once we get settled, we'll have to get a puppy for this guy to chase around."
Marilyn's eyes opened at that. "A puppy!" Her family is not a pet type family. They didn't have dogs or cats, or even fish in the fish tank.
I grinned. "All boys need a dog!"
Tessa laughed at that. "My sisters and I all had cats."
That made me laugh even harder. "That'd be even better. My mother is deathly afraid of cats! It's the perfect anti-Mom defense!"
Tusker and Tessa took Suzie back to Baltimore and got her on the bus to Newark. It was a good visit, and after they left, I said to my wife, "I think we ought to move back home."
Marilyn stared at me in disbelief. "Home? Your home? With your family?"
"No, no, nothing like that. I'm not that crazy! No, I mean, to Maryland. You want some place out in the country, and I don't want to shovel snow. There's still a lot of farm country in Maryland. It's not all suburbs. Northern Baltimore County is still very rural. I'm sure we can do something up there."
"I don't know...", she said slowly.
"Listen, once I can get loose from here, we'll drive up and look around. I'll show you! I know there's plenty of farmland and such up past Cockeysville and Hereford."
Marilyn shrugged her shoulders. "Speaking of which, how are we going to do that? You can't drive yet, and the Toyota is awfully small!"
"I have no idea." The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was still at the mercy of the Army. Walter Reed was not about to turn me loose. In fact, once they had done what they could for me, they would ship my sorry ass posthaste back to Fayetteville.
I just nodded. "I can pretty much guarantee you that if you ask the concierge at the Hilton, you'll get some help. They can also point you towards a shopping mall. Don't buy much, but I'll need some stuff. Get me a shaving kit, some sweats and underwear. That sort of stuff, something I can move around in without my ass hanging out the back side. I wear a size 12 shoe, by the way."
Marilyn can be very passive-aggressive about this sort of thing, but finally agreed to pick some stuff up for me. She absolutely hates driving in a city, probably because she's a lousy driver. It's no big deal for me. Back when I was learning the first time through, I learned on the Baltimore Beltway, five lanes at 70 miles an hour!
Marilyn picked up a few things for me, although the sneakers she bought me were the wrong size. I was still stuck at Walter Reed, though. By the end of my second week, my bandages were removed and a much smaller bandage and wrap were put on my knee. I was then transferred to a rehab section, to get me back on my feet. I spent the next week learning to use crutches and starting a delightful regimen of torture, to get me moving my knee and learning how to walk again. I couldn't believe how weak I was. When I wasn't in rehab, I spent time in their gym doing bench presses. I had lost over twenty pounds, between the hike out of Nicaragua and my time in jail, and hadn't come close to getting back in shape. My clothes hung on me loosely.
I spent Christmas in the hospital, with just a few presents, since it was so far from home and none of us had a chance to shop. Marilyn went out and picked up a few things for Charlie, and we promised each other we would do something when I was released. It still took almost four weeks after the operation before I was finally released. I sent Marilyn home with Charlie, back to our apartment. There was no way I could ride comfortably in the Toyota, at least not yet. Besides, it was the Army's job to take me home. I got sent a day later, in a Herky Bird rigged for medical transport, and then an ambulance took me to the hospital at Bragg. I got another physical, had to stay the night, and was scheduled for more rehab. When I was released the day after, Marilyn came with my Impala, and Charlie loaded in the back seat.
As we drove off the base, back to the apartment, I said, "You know, I'm going to miss this, but I sure won't miss not coming home to you. I haven't got a clue what I'm going to do now, but whatever it is, I don't want to travel too much."
"Have you thought any more about that? I mean, what you want to do now?", she asked.
Charlie started fussing, and I twisted around a bit to make funny faces at him and try and distract him. "Not a frigging clue!"
"We'll have to talk about that, I guess.", Marilyn said. I just nodded.
We were at the apartment soon enough and I could stop trying to amuse my son and turn the job over to the professional. Marilyn helped me out of the car, and I was able to use my crutches well enough to walk to the apartment. Marilyn had to unlock the place, since I had left my keys at home before the deployment. Thankfully we had a ground floor apartment, since I wasn't all that great on negotiating stairs yet.
The fact the Army was cutting me loose smacked me in the face when I walked into the place. There on the dining room table were several boxes sent over from the battery. Mighty Mouse must have really wanted my ass gone! I balanced on my left leg while looking through them. One box had the photos from my 'I Love Me' wall, the pictures of me with the unit and the one from four years ago with Grace Hopper. The pictures from my desk, of Marilyn, were also packed up, along with anything personal from my desk. A larger box contained some uniforms and fatigue gear from my office. Surprisingly, there was a box with my gear that had been shipped back from Honduras, including some stuff I had despaired of every seeing again, like my Colt. They must have traced it by the serial number. There was also a note from Colonel Featherstone, rolled up and tucked into the barrel, that my 1911A1 seemed to be 'combat lost'. That brought a smile to my face.
I made my way on through the apartment, looking at everything like it was the first time there. It all looked the same, but different. It was subtle things that were odd; a new shower curtain, the toaster moved in the kitchen, an Afghan on the couch instead of a comforter. I found Marilyn in the second bedroom, where she was sitting in a rocker, feeding Charlie from a bottle. I stood there in the doorway and just watched them, smiling. She looked up at me and said, "What?"
I smiled. "It's nothing."
"Tell me what."
"It's just good to be home. Seeing you two like this, that sort of thing." Marilyn smiled and rolled her eyes. I backed up into the hallway again. "I'm going to take a shower."
"Will you need help?"
She meant help maneuvering and getting undressed, not the kind of help I would have enjoyed. "I'll be fine.", I told her.
I hobbled down to the master bedroom. The apartment only had one bathroom, but it had a door onto the hallway and a second into our bedroom. I leaned the crutches against the dresser, and then sat down on the bed. It took me almost ten minutes to get undressed, with most of the time being spent from the waist down. I no longer had the bandages on my knee, but it was very stiff and didn't bend well or support much weight yet. Naked, I got back to my feet and hopped to the bathroom, supporting myself against the wall.